Women’s World Cup Players Lead Biggest Climate Initiative in Soccer History

With the Women’s World Cup well underway, players from all over the world are settled in the host countries of Australia and New Zealand. But to get to these countries, most players had to take very long, and very polluting, flights.

The dozens of long-haul flights to get to the Cup add up to a terrible burden on the atmosphere, with a huge release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions. But one player, Sofie Junge Pedersen of Denmark, decided she wanted to do something about it.

The result is that Pederson, along with Jessie Fleming, a midfielder for Canada, and Elena Linari, a defender for Italy, have created the largest climate campaign in the history of soccer, recruiting more than 40 other players to join the initiative.

They took their idea to Common Goal, a social and environmental collective in world soccer, and Football for Future, a UK-based climate advocacy group, which were able to help coordinate and make it happen.

Along with doing what the players can to carbon-offset their flights, they’re also giving money to efforts that work toward climate resilience and adaptation. They’re supporting climate projects by the World Wide Fund for Nature and DanChurchAid, a Danish nonprofit that helps the poor.

“I want to ensure my World Cup experience has a positive environmental legacy,” Pedersen told reporters. “Climate change is the biggest issue humanity faces, and I want to be part of the solution. While there are no current sustainable solutions to aviation, as players we are setting an example and taking a tangible step in the right direction.”

A one-way flight from Copenhagen, Denmark, to Sydney, Australia, emits 4.51 metric tons of carbon and other greenhouse gasses. To offset emissions from such a flight — which is the equivalent of driving a gas-powered vehicle for a year, or 507 gallons of gasoline — you’d need to plant 5.4 acres of forest in one year, says the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Pedersen, in an op-ed for The Guardian, writes: “My efforts to change my behaviour and reduce my carbon footprint didn’t come all at once, but gradually I have adjusted things in my life to be more carbon friendly. What is driving me is that the countries and the people that are least responsible for this situation are the most affected by the climate changes. That is unfair. For about five years I have paid for carbon offsetting or compensated for flying…”

Fleming from Canada added: “This is a topic I feel passionate about, and I hope this action my teammates and I are taking accelerates the climate conversation and sets a precedent for what athletes can do to push for more environmental policies in football.”

With the absurd differences in pay for women vs. men in the soccer world — the women players are earning 25 cents to the dollar of men at this year’s World Cup, according to CNN — it is even more impressive that Pedersen and her colleagues are paying out of their own pockets to offset their negative climate impact.

“We are not saying we are saving the world by doing this, far from it,” Pedersen writes. “But it is about everyone who can doing their bit and inspiring others, to see if fans and other players would consider some positive climate actions.”

Other players like…the men?